


Tech Support

by greenconverses



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Meetings, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Role Reversal, Slow Build, and oliver is her suspiciously hunky suspenders wearing IT guy, the one where felicity's the billionaire party girl turned vigilante
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenconverses/pseuds/greenconverses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver Queen does not get a lot of a visitors in his closet of an office at Smoak Industries; he's sure most of the higher ups don't even know he has an office. So how had the infamous Felicity Smoak found her way to his doorstep, and what did she want with him?</p><p>Or '<i>Five Times Oliver Queen Helped the Starling City Vigilante (and the one time she helped him)</i>'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**i.**

"Hi."

Oliver briefly glances up from the lines of code on his screen, ready to tell whoever has come to bother him that if accounting hasn’t figured out that paper jam on their own yet, they can go fuck themselves, but the words die on his lips when he realizes who exactly is standing in his doorway and why he should definitely  _not_  tell them to fuck off. The Sharpie he’d been chewing on thoughtfully for the last 10 minutes nearly drops out of his mouth in surprise.

He knows who she is immediately — how could he not, with her face plastered all over the news channels for the last three weeks and, oh, the  _tiny_ , inescapable fact that her last name is chiseled on the side of the building he works in? —  but he’s still can’t believe she’s  _here_ , in the doorway to his tiny office. She is not his standard visitor, and generally, none of the higher ups are at all inclined to visit him at bottom of Smoak Industries; he just comes to them when they call and fixes whatever inane problem they may have. In fact, most of them probably don’t even know where his office is.

So how had the infamous Felicity Smoak found him and what in the hell did she want with him?

“Oliver Queen?” she asks a little hesitantly, approaching his desk. Her blonde hair is curled down around her shoulders, shining like spun gold, and she’s wearing a blue mini dress that does her curves all sorts of favors. “The guys upstairs told me you’re the one to talk to about tech issues? I am in the IT department… right?”

“Yes!” Oliver exclaims just a bit too sharply, recovering from his surprise. He takes the marker out of his mouth and sets it aside, trying to recover his long lost cool. “Sorry, yes to both questions. I’m Oliver and this is the IT department. I didn’t realize you worked here, Ms. Smoak.”

Felicity smiles at him, as if she’s used to flustering people with her general presence — and who is he kidding,  _of course_  she is. She’s Felicity Smoak, heiress to a top Fortune 500 company and former queen of the spoiled, drunk rich kids of the world, famous only for being, well, rich and drunk. Now, she’s famous for recently being rescued from a deserted island after being presumed dead in the North China Sea for the last five years. She’s probably flustered people left and right since she got home, and Oliver’s only the most recent victim.

“Oh, I don’t work here,  _thank god_. I just need to use some good ol’ family connections,” she says, pausing in front of his desk. Oliver narrows his eyes at this, not liking where this conversation is headed. “And you can call me Felicity, if you like. Ms. Smoak’s my mother’s name.”

“But she’s dead,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. He curses internally; he’s always had a problem with running his mouth and Felicity’s arched eyebrow indicates he needs to say something to make up for it,  _fast_ , “I mean, she drowned! And you… you didn’t, obviously, which is why you’re here. In my office. Listening to me make a complete ass out of myself. Which is what I will stop doing here in just a few seconds, I promise.”

Felicity’s eyebrow goes down and her flirtatious smile doesn’t waiver much, but her eyes darken as she studies him. “Do you always babble this much, Mr. Queen?”

“Not  _always_ , but enough to get me in trouble,” he says with a long suffering sigh. He offers her his best apologetic smile, and adjusts the suspender slowly making its way off his right shoulder. “You have now discovered why I lurk in the dungeons of Smoak Industries with only computers for friends. Try not to use it against me.”

“I make no promises,” Felicity says, opening up her bag and pulling out her laptop. “Anyway, I heard you’re a veritable genius with these things, and I definitely need your help. You won’t believe what I did to this!”

Oliver has worked with computers since he was in middle school, and knows when a gorgeous woman is trying to use him for free tech support. He’d figured Felicity out right away — because why else would she be  _here_? — but she’d startled him straight out of his usual grumpy attitude the minute she’d walked in the door and it’s taking him longer than he likes to recover it. He does not appreciate being taken advantage of.

He has half of mind to tell her that he was simply tech support for Smoak Industries employees only and to come back when she actually has a job here. He nearly suggests she take her undoubtedly vodka soaked notebook to BestBuy, as the last thing he had time for today was helping her recover her iTunes library, but then he catches a good look of the laptop in question and any annoyance at her is dismissed.

“Jesus, what did you do, drop it in the middle of a war zone?” he exclaims, reaching for the computer and practically snatching it out of her hands.

“I was having coffee at my favorite shop,” Felicity says casually, but Oliver hears the careful, rehearsed lie in her voice, “And I spilled a latte on it.”

Oliver rolls the laptop over in his hands, and looks back up at her in disbelief. Will he get fired if he calls bullshit on his boss’s daughter? Because he’s seen damage like this before and it certainly isn’t caused by Starbucks’s best blend.

“Really?” he says skeptically, pointing at the case of the ruined laptop, “Because these look a lot like bullet holes.”

Felicity freezes for just a moment, just long enough for Oliver to see her ditzy blonde act crack and for him to catch a glimpse of something else — something wickedly intelligent, cunning, and fierce — lurking underneath. She recovers herself within seconds, and then she’s leaning over his desk, purposefully giving him a good view of her cleavage, and tossing her hair over her shoulder flirtatiously. She’s trying to distract him and maybe it would have worked if she had actually spilled a latte on her computer, but not with this. Just what doesn’t she want him to know?

Oliver likes mysteries, likes following information trails back to their source, and once he’s been put on one, there are very fews things that can get him off track. It’s what makes him a world class hacker, although if she asks about that particular skill, he’ll deny it — he would, after all, like to keep his job.

“My coffee shop’s in a bad neighborhood,” she confides with a girlish giggle. “My bodyguard hates that I go there, but there’s a really cute barista that I just have to talk to, you know? It’s been a longtime since I’ve had some …ah, eye candy.”

“Mhmmm.”

He could still tell her no, tell her to take her laptop to some other tech she can distract with flirtation and her pretty smiles, but he won’t. He could call her on her blatant lie and demand to know how she’d really damaged the thing, but he won’t. He wants to know what’s on the bullet ridden laptop just as badly as she does, wants to see her fierce other side again, and he won’t get that if he demeans and pushes her. If he lets her walk out that door now, she won’t be coming back and he won’t get his answers.

So Oliver lets her sweat out her lie for a few beats, holding her gaze and making sure she knows he doesn’t believe her  _at all_ , before he lets out a dramatic sigh, setting the computer down and opening it up. He notices Felicity’s posture relax slightly out of the corner of his eye as he reaches for some connector cables.

“All right, I’ll see what I can do for you. Luckily, it doesn’t look like the hard drive was damaged much by your…  _latte_ ,” he says, adjusting his suspenders again and rotating his neck, “Pull up a chair, Felicity. You might be here for a while.”

Few things can distract Oliver Queen from a mystery, and Felicity Smoak in her blue mini dress is not one of them. Especially not when she’s just revealed she could be the most intriguing mystery of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a "role reversal" prompt on tumblr, and one of my first fics for Arrow fandom! I may be expanding this at some point because ITgeek!Oliver is just too good to let go.


	2. Chapter 2

**ii.**

A person can miss out some pretty great advances in technology in five years, especially if said person is stuck on some remote hell hole with nothing but primitive tools to keep them company, but Google _definitely_ existed before Felicity Smoak got stranded on that island and Oliver has decided it’s high time she learn how to use it.

Not that she ever visits to ask about something that can be solved with an easy search and, frankly, he’d be insulted if she did at this point, but showing her how to use a few databases might certainly get her out of his hair. But, knowing Felicity, that won’t keep her away for long.

She has had more obscure tech problems and research requests in four months than any normal person has any right to, and it’s not just because her time on the island rendered her technologically incompetent. In all actuality, Felicity is incredibly smart and clever, more so than any of the tabloids would have the residents of Starling City believe. She just has a lot of… _strange_ hobbies he decides it’s best not to ask too much about. Most of the time.

“So, explain to me again,” Oliver says, turning in his chair as the search runs on his computer. He lifts the tiny bug in his hands and observes it in the dim lighting of his office, “why do you have GPS tracking devices on your jewelry?”

Felicity gives him a polite smile from where she’s perched on the corner of his desk, swinging her legs idly. “You don’t have a lot of experience with multimillion dollar family heirlooms, do you?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Oliver responds dryly, making a great effort to keep his eyes focused on her face and not her bare legs. She abandoned her flirt-into-distraction tactic with him after their first meeting, but she’s still Felicity Smoak and still gorgeous, so sometimes he can’t help but look at her. “There’s only one set of Queen family jewels that need… wait, nope, not going there. I’m stopping while I’m ahead this time.”

Her smile turns into a full-force, genuine grin and, as mortifying as that last gaffe was, Oliver’s pleased that it at least resulted in that.

“Well, the tracking device was my father’s idea, after a particularly valuable piece ended up on eBay after one of his boozy, irresponsible daughters left it at a nightclub one night,” she explains, “You wouldn’t want to meet her, trust me. _Total_ trainwreck, especially after that whole Castaway thing she went through.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. “Did said boozy daughter lose another piece and doesn’t want to tell her father, so that’s why she needs the manufacturing information from her favorite IT guy?”

“Probably. And who said you’re my favorite? You’re my _only_ IT guy.”

Oliver smirks and glances back at his screen, checking to the status of his search. While Felicity’s explanation lacks the rehearsed quality of her last few excuses and is actually the most plausible of them all, he still fairly certain she’s lying to him. She’s still set on trying to sell him her image as an idle rich girl, but less so with each visit. Felicity doesn’t let her guard down easily, so he wonders if this means she's starting to trust him with whatever she's doing with all the information he mines for her.

She's certainly not doing it because _likes_ him, as friend or anything else. He'd really be delusional if he believed that. Just because she asks him for the occasional favor doesn’t mean they’re friends, and anyway, Oliver is definitely is no Tommy Merlyn or Laurel Lance.

“Can I ask you something?” she says after a few moments of silence pass, the only sound between them the comfortable hum of his computers and servers.  

“Besides, ‘Hey Oliver, what do you know about tracking devices?’”

“Yes, besides that,” Felicity says, and he nods at her. “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but… how did a guy like you get end up in the IT department?”

He cocks his head, drumming his fingers on his bicep. “'A guy like me?’”

“You know,” Felicity says, gesturing at him at pointedly. “You aren’t exactly typical IT material, what with the muscles and all. I was not expecting a computer nerd to be so built.”

Oliver levels an unimpressed glare at her. “Just because I work with computers doesn’t mean I’m allergic to going to the gym, Ms. Smoak.”

“Okay, but there’s going to the gym and then there’s you,” she says, flexing playfully and Oliver notes, with a long swallow, that she has quite the set of defined muscles herself. “What’s your secret? You play football in college?”

“I was into archery in high school, but otherwise, no sports for me,” he says, hoping that will be enough for her. It’s not, of course. She’s looking at him expectantly, and he clenches his jaw, taking a deep breath through his nose before continuing, “I was... in the military for a while, as an IT specialist. Marines, specifically.”

Felicity’s eyebrows shoot up in interest. “Really? You should hang out with my bodyguard, Digg. He's a vet too, though that's something else I wouldn't have pegged you for.”

“Well, when you try to hack one too many federal databases as a dumbass teenager, you tend to attract a lot of attention from powerful people,” Oliver says with a shrug, not particularly wanting to discuss this part of his past. Felicity’s not the only one who can put up emotional walls. “Anyway, I did a tour and was discharged, and now here I am, acting as your personal Internet researcher.”

“You say that if it’s a _bad_ thing.”

As if on cue, his computer lets out a chime, signaling that the search has finished and he turns, scanning the information in the pop-up window on the screen.

“Huh,” he says. “Well, isn’t that interesting.”

Felicity hops off the edge of his desk and moves toward his side, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. Her ponytail brushes against the side of his neck, and Oliver gets a whiff of the light, fruity scent of her shampoo.

“The serial number on this bug says it belongs to a military contractor, Davenport-Davenport Dynamics. Owned by brothers Charles and Gregory Davenport, here in Starling City,” Oliver frowns at the computer, hands flying across the keyboard as he brings up another search engine. “Davenport-Davenport. God, why does that company sound familiar?”

“Because they’re the ones who got caught selling faulty equipment to the Army last year,” Felicity replies, her voice full of steel. “As well as embezzling the money raised by their non-profit for Starling City veterans. They’re real classy guys."

Somewhat distracted by her proximity and her scent, Oliver blindly reaches for the bug on his desk, knocking a few pens to the ground.

"How long did you say your dad had these trackers? If they didn't have a problem selling shit to the government, private citizens probably didn't fare much better. I can check and see if there was a recall or run a — "

“That’s okay," Felicity says sharply, reaching over his shoulder and picking the bug up off his desk just before he gets to it. "I'll… let my dad know about it. Thanks for your help, Oliver.”

Their hands brush together, and Olivers turns his head, their eyes meeting. _There’s_ the fierce intensity he’s been looking for during her visits, and, for once, she doesn’t try to hide it. This, he realizes, is who Felicity really is — not the recovering party girl persona she takes on for the tabolids or the sad, damaged woman her family likes to paint her as among Starling City elites. Felicity Smoak is a survivor above all else, and he is endlessly (and hopelessly) impressed by her.

“You’re welcome,” he replies, as she grabs her purse and strides for the door. “Personal researcher Oliver Queen, always at your assistance.”

Felicity pauses, her hand the door frame, and looks back at him one more time, an inscrutable expression on her face.

“I’ll hold you to that, Mr. Queen.”

And she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kind comments on the first part! I did decide to continue on with this. The plot bunnies just kept coming after this first one, and now I'm accidentally developing a whole AU canon for Felicity. Whoops. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**iii.**

Oliver’s boots echo in the nearly empty parking garage as he strides toward his motorcycle, shifting his helmet into his left hand as he takes a quick glance at his watch. He curses under his breath when he catches sight of the time, his annoyance nearing peak levels.

He was supposed to have been off work hours ago, but some asshole in accounting had gone and opened a virus he’d told them not to in a _very_ specific and threatening email sent out just that morning, so Oliver had then spent the next seven hours of his life debugging and restoring computer after computer in said department. And now, he’s going to be late for his first date in _months_ and it is all accounting’s fault.

So help him, if any of them come to him with so much of as a _paper jam_ tomorrow, he will find a way to destroy them, body and soul. _Somehow_.

He reaches for his keys in the pocket of his jacket and goes still in front of his bike, keys wrapped around his fingers, as an eerie sensation washes over him. His shoulders stiffen as he realizes he’s being watched, and Oliver concentrates, straining his ears for any out of place sound. The quiet of the parking garage is interrupted only by the buzzing of the fluorescent light about his head, the wail of police sirens in the distance, and _there_ — the slight scuff of boots against pavement behind him.

Oliver’s prepared when the touch on his shoulder comes a moment later; he whirls around, knocking his attacker’s hand aside. He grabs her wrist and drives her (wait, _her_?) back into the cement wall, pinning her with an arm across her collarbone. She lets out a gasp of pain as his digs upward into her neck and shoulders, and —

“ _Oliver_.”

Oliver blinks, the sound of her voice breaking the hold his adrenaline had on him, and he lets go of her immediately, taking a few steps back.

“Felicity! Fuck, shit, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean — I don’t like being…” he trails off as his brain finally registers the unbelievable sight before him. He takes another step back, gaping at her. “... _Felicity_?”

He both does and does not recognize the woman in front of him, clad as she is in black leather, with a mask obscuring most of her face and a long, platinum blonde wig cascading down her shoulders. In the past six months, he’s seen blurry photos of this woman crop up on every corner of the Internet, her wanted poster runs almost daily on Starling City’s cable news stations and newspapers, and never _once_ had he connected her to the pretty heiress who sits on his desk during his lunch hour and asks him for ridiculous favors.

Until now.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he whispers, as his world tilts and adjusts itself on its new axis. He runs a hand over his jaw in disbelief.

She slumps against the wall, eyes behind the mask glazed with pain, and with a jolt, Oliver realizes she’s bleeding heavily from a wound in the shoulder. He’s suddenly aware of the glinting pieces of glass in her hair, how out in the open the two of them are, and… are those police sirens getting closer?

“Hi Oliver,” the Starling City vigilante says, her lips quirking up in exhausted amusement, “I, ah, kinda need your assistance.”

Oh, he is _definitely_ not getting to his date on time.

 

* * *

 

“Your _brother_ shot you? What… _why_?”

Felicity glares at Oliver as she slowly tugs a gray hoodie over her injured shoulder, wincing as the stitches pull at her skin. Not more than two hours ago, Oliver had watched her bodyguard, John Diggle, pull out a bullet and put in those stitches in while she lay unconscious and pale on a cool, metal table at the bottom of an old Smoak Industries warehouse. She still hasn’t regained her usual color, and her eyes are glazed with exhaustion and pain, but at least she’s awake, which Oliver thought might never happen again.

“People tend to… overreact when I pay them a visit in my official capacity,” she says gruffly. “I let my guard down with Elijah. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not,” Diggle says from her side, handing her a bottle of water. “I told you to be careful with him.”

“I _know_ , Digg. I still don’t think he’s involved — ”

“Don’t be naive, Felicity. You heard the recording.”

“I am _anything_ but naive,” Felicity says sharply, her voice rising with anger. She slams the water bottle down, practically vibrating with tension. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him or hear what he said.”

Diggle crosses his arms over his chest, not intimidated in the least. “No, but I saw we he did to _you_. You were lucky he didn’t kill you, lucky that _this kid_ ,” Diggle thrusts his thumb in Oliver’s direction, “brought you here and didn’t go to the police. Your luck is going to run out some day, Felicity, and I’d prefer it to not happen under my watch.”

Felicity’s glower could peel paint off the side of a house, and while she doesn’t respond to Diggle’s comment, she clearly isn’t conceding the argument — whatever it’s about — to him. She wrenches the bottle open and takes a long swing of water, stewing in her anger for a little while longer.

“Um,” Oliver says at last, breaking the tension sizzling in the cool air of the foundry. The two of them look over at him at the same time expectantly, “So, are you going to tell me what it is you’re talking about or do I have to fill in the blanks myself?”

Diggle and Felicity exchange another look, the other man arching an eyebrow in silent warning, before Felicity hops off the table, moving toward Oliver.

“That depends,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. Oliver doesn’t miss the wince that splices across her face at the movement. “On whether or not you want to join the team.”

Oliver’s brows raise in surprise. Out of all the things he expected her to say once she was awake, that was not one of them.

“You want _me_? For what?”

Felicity gestures at the bank of computer behind him. “For what you’ve been doing all along. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m not all that tech savvy — ”

“Tell me about. I can’t believe you’ve been running operations down here with such a shitty signal and utter lack of firewall and… ” Oliver trails off at the look on her face, drumming his fingers against the arm of the computer chair. “Uh, sorry. You were saying?”

“I couldn’t have cracked some of my recent cases without your expertise, Oliver,” she says after a pause. “You have helped more than you know, and now that you know what I’m doing with that information... I’d like you to continue helping. Officially.”

Oliver takes a long look at her, taking in her sweaty, disheveled hair, faded hoodie and scuffed leather pants and boots. He looks past her at Diggle, who had very nearly shot him when he’d appeared in the foundry with a wounded and unconscious Felicity in his arms, and then put to the gun down so they could work together to save her life. He takes in the dim atmosphere of the foundry, the sparring equipment and weight lift contraptions in one corner, the atrocious server and computer set-up he’d already started improving to keep his hands busy, and the rack holding her weapons: her staff, and bow and arrows.

Does he want to be part of this, more so than he already has? He’d be actively engaging in criminal activity, and putting himself in danger and risk of arrest — not that he was a stranger to any of that — to hold Starling City’s one percenters accountable for their actions. _Could_ he be a part of this?

Or, more importantly, could he step away from this, from _Felicity_ , now knowing who she truly was and what she was doing at night?

That answer to that, he finds, is surprisingly simple.

“You’re not going to put an arrow through me if I say no, are you?”

Felicity smiles at him, and for once, he doesn’t think any part of it’s fake.

“I’m better with my staff, honestly. I need to work on my aim,” she teases, because they both know her aim is impeccable. “So… are you in, Oliver Queen?”

She holds out her hand, and Oliver takes it without hesistation. 


End file.
